


Darkness

by underthewillows



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Grief, Homecoming, Loss, Love, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 03:08:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21550213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/underthewillows/pseuds/underthewillows
Summary: Sherlock has been gone for 2 long years. How is John coping? Will he ever get his miracle of Sherlock coming home to him?
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Kudos: 23





	Darkness

Finally. After two years I had finally made John completely safe again. My John. I really could not tell anyone when I had begun to care so much for my companion. In all likelihood, I had begun to have feelings for John soon after we had solved our first case together, but realizing how strong those feelings were, took several more years and the abrupt loneliness I found myself in after I fell that day.

Suddenly being trapped in a mind as vast as mine, I could do nothing but feel, think of what John meant to me, wonder what I had meant to him. He had opened up my heart and soul and now there was nothing I could do to staunch the flow of utter loneliness and heartache. I had no one to talk to, languishing in my mind palace for days on end, always ending up in the vast castle that I kept all memories associated with John in. There was the first laugh we shared, the first "Brilliant!" that I heard from him and the very first true compliment I had ever received, all 24 seemingly similar but very different jumpers he rotated through, our first Christmas…everything about John Watson and those years we had spent together. I had kept a wing of the castle clear, for the memories after I fell, after I came home. It was clear, except for a blurry photo, framed in an ornate gold and sapphire frame.

This grainy security camera photo of John, given to me by Mycroft after I had asked him to see John again, to see some part of him so I knew he was okay, was all I had of John from the last 2 years. He was walking into our flat, but his shoulders were bent and he seemed much smaller than I remembered. The blurry form was faded even more from my fingers rubbing against the paper, always hoping that John Watson was soldiering on without me, although even from this grainy photo, I knew he was as broken as I was.

I wrapped John's jacket around me, I had stolen it soon after I fell, tucked my scarf behind my head and slumped against the wall of the cattle car I was sitting in to get back to London, to John, and watched the slivers of moonlight dance across the photo, because I couldn't look at the darkness beside me, John was there, with a gunshot wound to the head, hanging inside his closet, or frothing at the mouth from an overdose of medication, John was there, broken and dead, because of me. I couldn't look at the darkness, but I could still hear John's screams, his sobs as they carted me away from him. I didn't try to block the noise, I deserved this, this was my purgatory.

I opened up the bottle of brandy and poured my third? fourth? glass of the night. It didn't really matter did it? I had morphed into a drunken night owl, taking overnight shifts at the clinic. I slept during the day, I couldn't stand the darkness, couldn't stare it in the face anymore. Darkness was where Sherlock was, where his bleeding, big brain was, where his ice blue eyes stared, and his broken limbs were hiding. But tonight, I couldn't help but face the darkness, work didn't need me, no one needed me. I pulled a chair up to the window and sat in the moonlight, waiting for the sun to rise, willing the sound of blood dripping on the pavement to go away.

The train shuddered to a stop, I gathered my meager belongings in my knapsack, hopped out of the car, and ran. Running as fast as I could, I made it to a main road and hailed a cab. I was finally going home.

0300, 0400, 0500, the hours went by, I had finished half the bottle of brandy and the room was getting a bit brighter. The steel glint from my gun smiled at me from the table next to me. So tempting, that gun was, it could be my friend, bring me back to really the only friend, the only love, I ever had.

_Knock, knock_

I rapped on the door, wringing my hands, what would I be faced with when that door opened?

_Knock, knock_

I jumped in my chair. Who would be knocking at the door this early? I got up, wrapped myself in the blue dressing gown that still faintly smelled of tobacco and lavender, still smelled of Sherlock, and grabbed my gun.

_Knock, knock_

I rapped again on the door, where was he? Was I too late? I began to pace on the front step, wait, there's movement inside. I stop in my tracks and about face to the door, facing whatever may await me.

_Knock, knock_

God, this person didn't give up did they? I took a defensive stance behind the door, gun in my right hand, slowly pulling the door open with my left. Whoever this was, couldn't be good, I didn't have anyone left, remember?

The door began to open, ocean blue eyes peeked at me from between the cracks.

The hallway was spinning, no no it can't be, can't be him.

His face was gray, his hair even grayer, wrinkles had formed, not from smiling, but from frowning, he was wrapped in my much too large dressing gown, he reeked of alcohol.

_Oh, John._

I swung the door open fully, letting me look at the ghost of my best friend. He had a healing gash down the left side of his face, his right eye was bruised. His skin glowed white in the dying moonlight, his hair was tousled and dirty. He was wearing an odd black jacket, much too short…he had my jacket. I reached out to him…

He reached out to me, I reached out to him. The sun was rising, our hands met.

I was home.

He was home.


End file.
